Brother’s Justice

The veteran of MTV’s celebrity prank series “Punk’d” makes that move in “Brother’s Justice,” but alas, it’s only a mockumentary.

Shepard gets this not-so-great idea to transform himself into a martial-arts star, and this faux film follows him trying to make that faux film, from wheeling in his producer pal Nate Tuck, to taking meetings for funding, to terrifying his agent, to getting his famous pals to co-star.

Shepard must’ve cashed in many favors, because he garnered an impressive list of past co-workers and mutual acquaintances to cameo as themselves, including Jon Favreau, Bradley Cooper, David Koechner, Tom Arnold and Ashton Douchener Kutchner. (Could he really not get Jessica Simpson?) I have a feeling these scenes were heavily, heavily improvised — especially when Arnold is involved, when they go on for double the length needed.

The highlights are when “Brother’s Justice” shows film clips within itself, culminating in the Asian/Western hybrid “Jeung Guns.” While I can’t say this feature-length put-on was ever painful to watch, it also wasn’t special. I never laughed once. From that aspect, I suppose you have to call it a failure, but a fairly noble one. —Rod Lott